


Gryffindor Girl Gang

by mermaidism



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Feminist Themes, Friendship, Gen, Girls Rule Boys Drool, Magic, Magical Girls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-05-28 12:34:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 5,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6329347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mermaidism/pseuds/mermaidism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an alternate universe in which there is no Voldemort or Wizarding World to save and Hermione, Lavender, and Parvati become friends, because literally, boys are the worst</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Hermione, Lavender, and Parvati arrive at Hogwarts

They met on the train but they did not become friends until later. Looking at them, one was inclined to believe they would never become friends at all.

One was tall and blonde and pleasantly freckled. Another was dark and shorter with sleek gold-flecked black hair. The third was fierce-eyed and bossy with a face surrounded by a halo of bushy brown ringlets. All three were skinny and knobby-kneed as eleven-year-old girls often are. All three were equal parts scared and wonderstruck. None of them were surprised to find themselves in a compartment of a scarlet train headed for a magical school, for they had known their whole lives that they were extraordinary.

After dinner, they made the long climb up the moving staircases, past portraits of women in black gowns with shadows under their eyes and sphinx-smiles dancing on their mouths, past suits of armor that moved without seeming to. They found themselves huddled together when the pearled shadows of the school ghosts materialized through stone walls. The boys in front of them (one red-haired and the other wearing round glasses) laughed, so the girls dropped each others’ arms and looked away.

But that midnight, safe in the tower dormitory, the three girls sat in silence facing each other in their curtained beds and decided. Though they were different, they were all here. They had been sorted into the same place, and futhermore, they had all three brought flannel pajama sets from home, and that seemed like a sign.

“I’m Lavender,” said the blonde one. Her pajamas were blue. She owned no purple clothing.

“I’m Parvati,” said the dark one, passing around a gold tin full of chomchom.

The fierce one put down her book. It was _Matilda_ by Roald Dahl.  
“I’m Hermione.”


	2. ii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the girl-gang is officially formed

Technically the girl-gang is Lavender’s idea. But they all agree to it and there is a round-robin approach to these sort of things, so they all claim a part of it. The Gryffindor Girl-Gang was born around midnight, as all the most magical things in this world are.

The cold candles snap to light as the three very different girls join hands. Outside their dormitory window, the wind shrieks and the full moon tumbles free from her cloud cover. Parvati shivers in her Indian silk nightgown. The others squeeze her fingers tighter. _Don’t be afraid. We were born for this. You aren’t alone._

There are oaths and finger-pricking and lots of laughter stifled behind hands and swan-feather pillows. It is Hermione who calls the first meeting to order. She, after all, has read Dickens and Alcott and _The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants_. She knows what must be done and how to do it. She takes a breath and begins.

“There ought to be rules.”

When the sun comes up the candles are out, the witches are asleep, and the rules are as follows:

_1\. Members of the Gryffindor Girl-Gang will always take the side of its members in an argument with an outside party._

_2\. The girl-gang will be kept an absolute secret from all outside members._

_3\. Members may never speak ill of another member, neither in private nor in plain sight._

_4\. We, the members, do solemnly swear to never allow a boy to destroy our bonds of friendship._

_5\. School rule-breaking is tolerated provided that all members are in agreement._

_6\. Love each other._

_7\. Trust each other._

_8\. Protect each other._

_9\. Have fun._

_10\. All for one, and one for all._


	3. iii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the Gryffindor Girl-Gang has their first adventure

_“Alohomora!”_

The door of medieval cedar wanders open and three small witches step out into the darkness.

“Now what?” asks the witch in the fluffy pink bathrobe. As if logistical issues like locked doors or charmed staircases or tattle-tale suits of armor were her department and trouble-making was up to someone else.

“Now, Hermione,” whispers blonde Lavender. “We are queens of this school. Now, we can do anything we want.”

“As long as no one sees us,” reminds Parvati in silk pajamas.

Hermione blows out the tip of her lighted wand and the three pale blue-lit faces are drowned in shadow.

“Right. Adventure Number One.” Lavender grins a hungry grin. An adventure-thirsty, night-eating, beautiful-girl grin. “We run to the end of the corridor. Touch the right hand of the statue of Morgana, then back to the portrait-hole. Last one back steals extra muffins from breakfast tomorrow.”

The three witches invoke the Sacred Rules of the Sisterhood. _All for one and one for all._ (Hermione Granger is the only one aware of their plagarization for she is the only one who has read or ever will read _The Three Musketeers_.)

“On your mark…get set…GO!”

—

The next morning the northwest fifth-floor corridor is littered with pieces of armor, a breastplate here and a helmet over there. The statue of Morgana seems to smile a little more mysteriously and her right hand reaches out to be touched by any who are brave enough.

Parvati Patil shows up to first-period Transfiguration with three blueberry muffins in her black leather schoolbag.


	4. iv.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which we learn a little bit more about Parvati

Parvati used to take piano lessons. Her twin took cello. They used to play together at dinner parties in matching robes and braids. The smiley slightly-tipsy society witches clap daintily and fawn over them. They always call the twins by the wrong names. Parvati smiles politely but doesn’t correct them. Padma scowls and the ladies’ champagne flutes shatter.

Her mother wants them to go to the Royal Academy of Music in London; they were good enough to get in or they would be, if they kept practicing. But Parvati’s father says music isn’t a viable career path for a witch. She hears them arguing about it at night, after the Ministry officials and their brightly-dressed wives are gone and the champagne has lost its fizz and Padma is fast asleep in the bed across from hers. Parvati knows it is an argument her father will win. She knows, too, that Padma will be glad when she can go to school and put her cello away for good. Glad to stop wearing twin party dresses and smiling twin smiles. But Parvati will miss her piano.

When the letters come at the end of July–two with matching calligraphy and red wax seals–the music lessons stop. They buy school books and wands and cauldrons. Padma falls asleep with her nose in the Potions book. On September 1st, Parvati’s mother tries not to cry on the platform as the train pulls out of the station. Is it the music she will miss or her identical-but-individual daughters? Parvati doesn’t know.

They are sorted into different places. Padma starts wearing her hair in a black bun on top of her head. No more braids. Blue and bronze tie instead of crimson and gold. No more confusion as to which twin she is. Parvati smiles at her sister in the halls, but there is no time to stop and talk, for questions, to ask for help with Transfiguration homework. But Padma looks happy. She smells of candle wax and coffee, smudged ink and late nights. Up in Gryffindor Tower, Parvati finds she is happy too.

At the Patil townhouse, a piano stands silently in the parlor. Its lid is closed but Mrs. Patil opens it from time to time to see the black and white keys where once small brown fingers had danced up and down, filling the white rooms with happy music. A cello case rests beside it, closed, dusty, and never to be played again.


	5. v.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the Gryffindor Girl-Gang spends Halloween in a bathroom

It is Halloween. Three small witches sit huddled in a bathroom. Two are hungry. Even through damp stone walls they can hear the shouts and laughter from the feast, but they pretend not to notice. One is crying. Hermione sits on a sink and tries not to let the others see her tears.

“Hermione, you mustn’t pay any attention to what that freckle-faced idiot says about you,” Lavender is saying while Parvati nods in agreement and passes over tissues. “You’re not a know-it-all, you’re just smart. Smarter than anyone I know. He’s just embarrassed that you got the hang of Wingardium Leviosa and he didn’t. Jealous too, probably.”

“Please don’t cry,” adds Parvati. “He was horrible to say that you didn’t have any friends, but he was wrong about that too. We’re your friends, Hermione. We always will be.”

“Do you mean it?” chokes out Hermione from behind trembling hands.

“Of course!”

“We take these girl-gang rules very seriously, you know.”

“Oh, please come up to the feast,” begs Parvati, twirling her dark braid anxiously.

“Yes, do! We’ll be just in time for candy apples and pumpkin pie. And I’ll sock that Weasley in the nose if he even looks at you sideways, cross my heart. You just _can’t_ spend Halloween locked in this bathroom. We’re witches! This is our night. And you’re one of us. A Sacred Sister of the Gryffindor Girl-Gang.” Lavender believes in the power of nights like this one. Her freckled face is sincere and determined and beautiful.

There are more tears then, and hiccups, and laughter. They help their bushy-haired witch-sister wash her face (in cold water so the tear tracks don’t show), and swear allegiance on entwined pinky fingers. It was Halloween, after all, and as Lavender so wisely observed, witches don’t spend that hallowed night in girls’ bathrooms.

\--

As it happened, the girls never did make it to the Halloween feast. The Heads of Houses could never be entirely sure what had transpired in the third floor girls bathroom, for when they arrived, the mirrors were shattered, the pipes were leaking, and the stalls were empty. Certainly _someone_ had to be responsible for knocking out the seven-foot club-wielding mountain troll who wandered away from the Halloween festivities, but whoever it was they were not coming forward.

That night, after Hermione is asleep, curled up around a dog-eared copy of _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ , Parvati and Lavender set out for midnight revenge. Ron Weasley will wake up the next morning with a strangled shout of horror. His vivid red hair will be matted with can only be described as great gobs of troll bogeys.


	6. vi.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which we learn how Lavender arrived at Hogwarts

Lavender is a country witch. Her face is freckled, her hair is yellow, her round knees are sunburned and she is full of the happy, easy charm that is so natural to those who have spent so much of their lives outside in all kinds of weather. She is a girl of gingham and chickens, of hedgerows and apple blossoms, and the dark damp of London frightens her as she stands with her parents on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on September the first, though she would rather die than admit that.

Mrs. Brown presses a twine-wrapped brown paper parcel into Lavender’s hands. Lavender tries not to meet her mother's eye, tries not to think about how Mrs. Brown wanted her to be home-schooled. _Plenty of respectable witches and wizards have learned their spells at kitchen tables_ , Mrs. Brown has always said when Lavender asks about school. She herself is one of them. Mrs. Brown does not trust the smog and the electric lights of London. She wonders how her daughter will fare so far from their little farm where the fields are laid out like gold-green quilts. But Lavender Brown is not her her mother. If there is a world beyond the hedgerow, she wants to see it. _She's never met a fence she couldn't climb over,_ says patient, slow-moving Mr. Brown one June night after the envelope with the crimson seal arrives. _She'll climb over this one too. Or else run right through it. Let her go, Alma. She'll come back. She knows the way home._

And so the little family from Herefordshire with their round rosy faces and sturdy boots stands in King's Cross Station and says their goodbyes. Mrs. Brown smooths Lavender’s sun-bleached hair and quietly lets her daughter go. Lavender boards the train with a smile she does not quite believe in yet, with small shoulders set, with the taste of adventure growing on her tongue. Mr. Brown promises to give the dogs kisses and to keep them out of the rabbit warrens. Her father’s tweed cloak looks strange and shabby among the crowd of emerald and scarlet, black satin and gray wool. He smiles and waves good-bye to his sunshine daughter. He knows that she was born for this. For a few seconds, his knotted, huge brown hand is the only thing in the world, and then the train turns the corner and the station is gone.

Some time later, Lavender Brown sits in an empty carriage with her brown-paper parcel and tries not to let the tears fall.

“Mind if I sit with you? Everywhere else is full, and my sister already found a seat.”

A dark-haired little witch is standing in the hall. Her eyes are huge and amber and she too looks as if she wants to cry.

Lavender sniffs and nods. They introduce themselves and try not to look at each other too long. The sweets trolley goes by. Parvati buys some Chocolate Frogs and lets Lavender pick first. A round-faced boy stops by to ask about a toad. Then another little witch with masses of brown curls comes to ask again. Lavender gives her a Chocolate Frog.

“This is the only one we’ve seen.”

The bushy-haired witch looks like she wants to laugh, but gets up and goes to keep looking instead.

Across the seat, Parvati smiles.

Lavender opens her mother’s parcel.

“Want some pie?”


	7. vii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the Girl-Gang passes Christmastime

Three little witches keep Christmas in three different places.

Lavender is at home in the country, in the middle of a hearty snowball fight with two sheepdogs and the friendly round-faced Muggle children who live down the lane. Her mother bakes apple pie and hangs evergreen garlands with her wand. She asks Lavender about school as they cut mistletoe sprigs from their back garden. Mrs. Brown smiles to hear Lavender chatter about classes and professors and two friends in Gryffindor tower. _Parvati plays piano and Hermione is so clever you almost wouldn't believe it,_ Lavender says as her mother drops the festive cuttings into the wicker basket. _You'd like them. Both of them._ Mr. Brown has gone to find a tree. He’ll bring it home and they will all help hang ornaments. That night, Lavender will be lifted on her father’s strong shoulders and place the tin star on the top of that sweet-smelling countryside tree. No _Wingardium Leviosa_ required.

Parvati and her sister set the table with their mother’s finest china dishes. The annual Patil Christmas party is to be the best and biggest to date. Padma is surly and has accidentally-on-purpose lit her party dress on fire. It is the same as Parvati’s, gold and velvety. She slams the plates down carelessly and returns to her bedroom where she has been ordered to remain. She'll bury her nose in her Charms textbook and imagine the ways to disrupt the evening. (Swearing dessert spoons and wineglasses that bite are her favorite ideas.) In the dining room, Parvati hums Beethoven as she arranges the silverware. Tonight, she will be allowed to stay up until midnight, and to eat at the beautiful table with her parents’ guests, and Mrs. Patil has promised one glass of champagne after a short piano recital. But Parvati knows she will end up spending the magical night sneaking food and chocolates and butterbeer into the bedroom she shares with her twin. They will have their own party–-giggling under a bedsheet fort in their pajamas.

Hermione will go to church with her parents and sneak candy canes as often as she can. Christmas is the only time of the year when candy is allowed into the Granger household. They will stay up late to watch _It’s A Wonderful Life_ and _Miracle on 34th Street_. Hermione will fall asleep on the couch, remembering when she was small and still believed in Santa Claus and the magic of Christmas. She’s found a different kind of magic now, much better than anything she could have imagined. But lying there on that old couch, washed in the glow of the electric tree lights, she misses just a little bit those old days when magic wasn’t quite real until late at night on December the 24th. Only the littlest bit.

\--

The next morning, among all the beautiful presents, each little witch will find two hand-wrapped parcels tied with twine, or Muggle paper decorated with reindeer and snowflakes, or else silky, golden-scrolled parchment paper. They'll smile as they open these and place the small, simple but precious gifts in special places of honor before they dress and go out their separate doors to celebrate the day.


	8. viii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the Gryffindor Girl-Gang unlocks a door

“It’s locked.”

“Why’s it locked?”

“Ouch, Parvati, that was my foot!”

“Move!”

Three little witches stood huddled in the darkness of an empty corridor. The fires in the wall braziers washed their faces in warm oranges and shadows. Their black cloaks melted seamlessly into the darkness, so their three small faces seemed to bob like weightless, bodiless ghosts. Somewhere behind them, a cat mewed. It was past midnight and outside the castle, there was no moon.

_Alohomora!_

The door in the empty corridor of the third floor, the door that had been locked, a forbidden door, opened wide. Three little witches in black cloaks with pounding hearts stepped into the darkness within. In the now-empty third-floor corridor, a cat with eyes like lamps prowled silently before trotting away down the Charms hallway.

\--

Some time later, the Gryffindor Girl-Gang sits huddled in Parvati’s bed, all in flannel pajamas. Their black cloaks lie crumpled on the floor.  
“What did you see when you looked in the mirror?"  
“I saw myself.” says Lavender. “I was famous and rich and I lived in London and everyone who knew me loved me. What about you, Parvati?”  
Hermione passes around a box of Muggle chocolates. Parvati has a particular fondness for Reese’s.  
"I saw a piano. I was playing the Chopin sonata with Padma."  
"Hermione?"  
The third little witch is quiet for a moment. Then she grins sheepishly.  
"I saw myself too. I had perfect teeth."

\--

The next day in first-period Potions, Parvati falls asleep on her textbook, Lavender throws a bat spleen at Ron Weasley and is given detention, while Hermione does her best to complete three Shrinking Solutions.


	9. ix.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the Girl Gang survives exam week

Finals week sorely tested the bonds of friendship between the three small members of the Gryffindor Girl Gang.

Parvati was perpetually turning the flatware at mealtimes into hydrangeas, but unable to restore them to their original forms, and her hair smelled very strongly of Indian _kapi_ , which greatly bothered Hermione since coffee was not allowed in the Granger household due to its acidic ability to discolor teeth. What was worse, (to Lavender’s way of thinking), was that she kept disappearing to study with her sister.  
"I’m sorry, Lav! Padma’s just so much better at explaining things like wand movements and properties of magic. Hermione tries to be helpful, but you know how she gets when you ask a question she thinks you ought to know the answer to! You can come too, if you want. You can practice the difference between Incendio and Silencio. I know you have trouble with those wand movements, and Padma would be glad to help."  
But Padma and Lavender do not get along particularly well, dating back to an incident involving a pitcher of raspberry cordial and a rather overly-competitive game of Exploding Snap over the Christmas holidays when Lavender had been invited over to the Patil townhouse.

Hermione was even worse. She refused point-blank to participate in any further after-dark adventures, and without her knowledge of second and third-year spells, there was really no point, as well as an extremely high risk of being caught and punished. Hermione spent most of her time in the library, annoying Madame Pince with increasingly desperate requests to borrow this, that, and the next book. Lavender brought her lunch in her school-bag, (slightly smashed, but still much appreciated), and Parvati kept her well-stocked in various herbal teas and strong hairbands. This library-hermitage in itself was not so bad, but the young witches soon learned that Hermione insisted upon absolute silence while studying, and was not above employing her wand to obtain it.

For Lavender’s part, she approached studying for her exams in much the same way that her father approached the spring planting. Slow but methodical, and with a good sense of humor.  
"Did you hear about the kidnapping in the Forbidden Forest?" she would ask, while they sat gathered with their scrolls of Potions notes around the common-room fireplace. Parvati looked stricken, Hermione merely confused as she was only half-listening while she wrote out the healing properties of the bezoar stone.  
"Yeah, but it’s all right now, he woke up."  
Somewhere behind her, Harry Potter laughed. Lavender had the grace to ignore him.

After the last exam (Transfiguration) was cried over, triple-checked, rolled up and handed in, the Gryffindor Girl Gang went on one final adventure. The Hogwarts Express arrived tomorrow and the three little witches who met on that same train would say _farewell for now_. So the black cloaks were donned, the wands were lit, the steps carefully measured, and grins stifled behind trembling hands.

\--

The next morning during the mass exodus from school to train, the stretch of handsomely papered hallway outside the Great Hall is decorated with a slogan in bright yellow spray paint. Not even Professor Flitwick and his _Scourgify_ spells can make much of a difference in its sunny message.

 _Happy Summer Holidays, Hogwarts!_  
_Love, the GGG._


	10. x.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the Gryffindor Girl Gang returns to Hogwarts for second year

On the morning of September the first, three little witches (slightly taller) take a compartment close to where the sweets trolley makes berth. Parvati is very brown after a summer spent in India. Lavender is all freckles and sun-bleached hair, and even Hermione is nicely sunburned from a week at the seaside. They eat their Chocolate Frogs and their Bernie Bott’s and then they divide up the mammoth slice of pie sent along by Mrs. Brown as tales of summer are unfolded and shared.

Lavender kissed a boy (on a dare). His name is Tommy Sullivan and he is one of a pack of merry Muggle children who live down the hedgerow. Parvati wants to know if this Tommy is good-looking enough to kiss, but Hermione is already asking if Lavender would consider kissing him again. (The answer is no, but Lavender Brown smiles when she says it.)

Parvati met an entire branch of her family tree for the third time in her life, but was just as overwhelmed as she had been at the first.  
"Thirty-four cousins is a lot to handle _,"_ she explains conspiratorially, even as she accepts a licorice wand from Lavender with hands beautifully painted in fading henna."And all my aunties want to do is ask questions and cook pani puri while my uncles argue about Quidditch leagues and the fastest way to get to downtown Bangladesh without using Apparition. Everyone was so lovely and Uncle Advik even took us for a ride on his carpet, but I think I’ve lost the hearing in my left ear and all I want to do is sleep! _"_  
Even now, Parvati is wreathed with the faint fragrance of curry.  
"I can’t get the smell out of my hair…"she moans while her friends giggle.

Hermione narrowly avoided braces, helped her mother repaint the kitchen ( _by hand?_ Parvati wonders aloud),  read her way through the entirety of the Nancy Drew mystery stories, and was pleasantly surprised to find a charming Bed and Breakfast run by a retired Ministry witch on the Granger family’s holiday. She also almost received an owl over the summer, but at the last minute it was decided that it would attract rather too much attention, and her parents instead bought her a handsome volume entitled _Which Witch: from Circe to Stevie Nicks; One Hundred Women Who Made History_ which she is reading even as she explains all this to Lavender and Parvati.

 

\--

 

That night after the feast, when most of the castle is fast asleep, the three members of the Gryffindor Girl Gang sit in a circle in their pajamas. The rules are reviewed and the oaths again sworn. None of the small witches have forgotten the words. A blood moon hangs huge and hopeful outside the tower window. The last hot night of summer seems to urge the three witches on. Parvati helps Lavender fasten her black cloak; the scrolling red henna on her hands dances across her skin. Hermione grins as she opens the portrait hole.

"Well girls? Are we ready for another year?" _  
_


	11. xi.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the Gryffindor Girl Gang exacts revenge on one Draco Malfoy

Three small witches sit huddled in a dark corner of the Hogwarts library's Restricted Section. The three tips of their wands are their only light. Hermione is curled in a supremely uncomfortable armchair, her bushy brown hair is obscured by a very large, dusty book. Lavender is lying on the floor beside a leaning tower of smaller, less dusty books, and Parvati sits cross-legged across from them both, twirling her braid as she reads. Her black patent-leather school shoes are perched on top of Lavender’s book pile.

“Anyone found anything?” Lavender whispers.

“I’ve got a curse that glues the tongue to the roof of the mouth,” says Parvati. She sighs. “Doesn’t seem cruel enough.”

“You know you really didn’t have to do this…” says Hermione over the top of her book. “It doesn’t matter what that Draco Malfoy called me. It doesn’t bother me so much.”

Lavender sits up so suddenly that the book-tower and Parvati’s shoes topple over with a series of dull thuds that echo in the absolute silence of the dark library. One book falls open and begins to recite a sonnet in a loud Scottish brogue. Lavender pounces on it at once.

“Shhhh!”

The three witches sit frozen, listening hard.

Nothing.

“Why don’t you just sing ‘God Save the Queen’ next time, Lavender?” snaps Hermione irritably. “That’d be less noise.”

“Sorry, I forgot they were there!”

“Anyway, it does matter what Draco Malfoy says!” says Parvati earnestly. “He’s a horrible little mouthbreather and he has to learn that he can’t go around calling members of the Gryffindor Girl Gang _annoying_ or _ugly_ or _bossy Mudblood know-it-alls._ ”

“Exactly! And very well said, Parvati,” puts in Lavender. “Besides Hermione, you’d do the same for us.”

“Take a look at this, girls,” says Parvati, holding out her book. “I think I’ve got just the curse for dear Draco…”

The three witches gather round the open book. Their wand-tips throw bluish spheres of light upon the mildewed page. They grin.

“Shhh,” hisses Parvati suddenly.

Again, the three witches listen. This time, they blow out their wands and run.

 

\--

 

Back in Gryffindor Tower, Parvati Patil sits bolt upright in her four-poster just as the sun is beginning to rise. When she opens the library at approximately the same time, Madame Pince will find the northern corner scattered with books. She will find an old book of curses that she forgot was still in circulation half-hidden beneath an armchair. And strangest of all, once the mess has been cleared away and the books returned to their shelves, Madame Pince will happen upon a pair of size five-and-a-half patent-leather shoes. She will not notice that written in silver ink on the inside of the buckle strap are written the initials: P.P.

 

Draco Malfoy will spend this October weekend in the hospital wing. His pale face is covered in an angry red rash that spells out: _girls rule, Draco drools._


	12. xii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which we learn about Hermione before Hogwarts

Hermione Granger used to go to public school. She bought school supplies (crayons and glue and spiral-bound notebooks) with her parents and she organized them by subject and color on the night before school started. Her favorite subject was Maths. Each little problem, each equation like a tiny, perfect puzzle in a language all its own. It was just the way her brain worked.

The library of Tower Bridge Primary School was her favorite place in the world and Mrs. Barnes, the librarian, was her favorite person. Hermione Granger, aged seven, all teeth and brown curls, came into the school library just after the dismissal bell rang to pick up the stack of books that Mrs. Barnes had waiting for her.

She read _Madeline_ and then _Madeline in London_. Then there was _The Secret Garden_ and _A Little Princess._ _Treasure Island, Alice in Wonderland, National Velvet, The BFG,_ and _Peter Pan_ all travelled between the Granger brownstone and the Tower Bridge library in a little blue backpack neatly monogramed with the letters: HJG.

There were uniforms, of course, and Hermione’s never fit properly, which bothered her, but she didn’t like to pester her mother about it. The skirt was cut too long, so the girls used to tease her about that. They teased her about her hair and her front teeth and her good grades too. And so from the very beginning, young Hermione learned to mistrust girls her age. Especially the pretty ones whose hair bands matched their uniform skirts. (It was not for some years, in the candlelit dormitory of a school of magic with Roald Dahl’s _Matilda_ in her hands that Hermione decided to reverse this particular long-held opinion.)

 

But young Hermione Granger who loved math and Mrs. Barnes and alphabetizing and peppermint believed firmly that she was destined for greatness. And so she tried not to worry about what the other students called her when they thought she could not hear, and she tried not to let pretty blonde Harriet McDonald see her cry. She did cry, sometimes, when no one could see her. But then she remembered all the heroes in all her books and she bit her lip and soldiered on. She won spelling bees and essay contests. She participated in all of the school plays and earned the highest marks on every exam that was placed in front of her.

This all worked very well until the fourth grade and the afternoon that Hermione’s class was assigned animals to research for a project. Harriet McDonald had been needling Hermione all day about her uniform shirt. It had shrunk slightly in the Grangers' washing machine and the white shirttail simply would _not_ stay tucked in. Molly Ashbury had pulled it out during Spelling and Gregory Harrison had seen her do it, and now he never missed an opportunity to pull Hermione’s shirttail simply because it made Harriet laugh so much.

The teacher had just started to hand out the animal assignments when Harriet McDonald leaned over to Molly Ashbury and whispered pointedly, _I hope Mrs. Davis gives Hermione the walrus. She wouldn’t have to do much research, would she? I mean, just look at those teeth…_

Harriet had exactly half a second in which to enjoy her joke. The next moment, the bottle of glue sitting on top of her desk had unaccountably exploded, and Molly Ashbury found her pencil box was on fire.

 

They had to cut off most of Harriet’s long yellow hair and Molly nursed a lifelong fear of fire, but Hermione Granger never came home from school in tears again. That afternoon, when Hermione came to library to pick up _Great Expectations_ and _The Jungle Book_ , Mrs. Barnes asked if she’d learned anything that day.

Hermione simply smiled.

“Well,” she whispered as she walked to her bus stop. “I’m a witch.”


	13. xiii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Parvati serves detention

Parvati sat in the chilly half-darkness of Professor Binns’ classroom and tried to keep her mind on her task: copying out the entirety of the epic poem of Morgan le Fay’s final journey to Avalon; no smudges or scratch-outs.  
It was difficult because the original was in very small print, and to add insult to injury, it was all very unfair. After all, it had been Lavender who had been talking for the entirety of the class, and Parvati had only leaned over to ask to borrow a quill and was promptly handed down detention. No manner of pleading or protesting had been effective in changing her sentence. Professor Binns had simply ploughed onward in his lecture (the exploits of Morgan le Fay and her connection to the mer-peoples of Great Britain.)

So here she sat in the candlelight with her poem and the snoring ghost of Professor Binns as the grandfather clock in the corner ticked out the seconds with all the artistry of a funeral dirge. This was the first time Parvati had ever been disciplined. She could not imagine what her father would say when he received an owl from the school. Probably something about bringing shame upon her family, closely followed by the observation that they expected this sort of thing from Padma, but never from her better-behaved sister.

Parvati sighed heavily and tried to concentrate on the words blossoming beneath her quill. She was just a few couplets from freedom. One mistake and she’d have to start over again. (This was in fact her fourth attempt.)  
“Psst!”  
Parvati nearly jumped out of her skin and upset her inkwell all over her beautiful parchment.  
She growled a few choice words in Hindi at the grinning Lavender. Hermione hovered a few inches behind her.  
“Look what you’ve made me do!” Parvati whispered fiercely after a quick glance at Professor Binns’ pearly form. Luckily, he had slept through the entire thing. Unluckily, it now appeared that Parvati was to be imprisoned here until sunrise. Her hard work was completely drowned in a sticky black puddle.  
“I told you not to sneak up on her,” Hermione hissed. Her thick hair was tied in a messy topknot and she was wrapped in a bathrobe.  
“Sorry!” Lavender moaned as quietly as she could. She was wearing blue pajamas. “We were coming to rescue you, Parvati. It’s after midnight and we got worried.”  
“Well you can just go back to the portrait hole and _keep_ worrying because I’ll never be done with this stupid thing now!”  
Suddenly, Parvati felt like crying. It just wasn’t _fair_!  
Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her bathrobe and Lavender very bravely, stupidly, and quietly began to raid Professor Binns’ desk.  
“We’ll just see about that!”

\--

As the clock in the History of Magic classroom struck one o’clock, Professor Binns woke from a deep and satisfying sleep. He glanced briefly at the neat parchment that the little dark-haired girl had left for him. It was the appropriate length and there were no scratch-outs. All was in order then. Professor Binns nodded once and settled back down to sleep.  
Parvati’s copy of _The Laye of the Lady Morgane le Faye_ was placed in a desk drawer and forgotten. If he had ever cared to examine it closely, the professor would have noticed that it was copied in three distinctly different hands.  
One was neat and straight. Another was loose and thin, full of loops and curlicues. The last was confident and slightly cramped, as if this person had copied the words many times over and was pleased to be getting done at last.


End file.
